The Sinister Specter
Chapter 1 I stood in the driveway of our "new" house, helping unload boxes from the moving van. But here, the term "new" needs to be applied loosely. The house, although beachfront property, looked to be run-down and dirty. The windows were streaky. The roof was missing shingles. It looked like it could collapse at a moment's notice. I turned to my friend Sarah, who was the one who had hooked us up with this place. "Honestly, what a fantastic choice Sarah. It's absolutely breathtaking," I said sarcastically. "Look, I don't know what else you want me to say," She replied. "It looked new in the pictures." "This is why you never buy something sight unseen," I muttered under my breath, angrily grabbing a box and walking in the front door. Inside I met my other friend, Libby, who was directing the moving guys with the placement of furniture. "Hey Anthony," She said in between giving orders. "Hi," I replied back, setting the box down on the kitchen counter. "What do you think of this place?" "It's a fucking dump," I replied back, noticing the spiderwebs hanging down from the ceiling fan in the kitchen. Libby laughed. "Yeah, I know right? But we can make the best of it." "If you say so," I said, heading back outside. Now, before I go any further, let me tell you how we ended up at this place. It was the summer of 2022. Earlier that spring we had each graduated from our respective colleges and then got together to decide where we should live for the next few years. We ended up coming across what appeared to be a decent piece of beachfront property in Charleston, South Carolina. Abnormally cheap price, given the location, we realized we couldn't pass up on this offer and bought the property. Fast forward two months and here we are - late August 2022, seeing the house in person for the first time. And I couldn't have been more disgusted. Suddenly, the voice of realization smacked me in the face as I realized there was not a solitary thing we could do about our situation. We were gonna be forced to live there. I decided that sometime in the future I would use my interior decorating skills and liven up the house. It's not gonna be so bad, I kept telling myself. After all, you're gonna be together with your friends. It will be a lot of fun. Chapter 2 That night, we got all our stuff unpacked and moved in. By the time we achieved completion of that task, we were exhausted and decided to head to one of the bars downtown for a break. We got back, drunk, around 1 A.M. in the morning. As we walked inside, Sarah attempted to turn on the hallway lights, but they wouldn't go. "What the hell!?" Sarah exclaimed. "They were working just fine earlier!" "Crappy house, crappy wiring," I said, heading upstairs. I stepped into my room, feeling unusually cold. I checked the two windows that were in there to see if either were open - neither were. Shivering, I slipped into bed and wrapped myself in the blankets in a desperate attempt to get warm. The Vodka we had earlier caused me to pass right out, and I fell asleep within seconds. ---- The next morning, I woke up with a headache. I groaned, stretched, and walked downstairs, where I found Libby making pancakes for us. "Morning!" She said cheerfully. "I made chocolate-chip pancakes. Want some?" "Maybe later," I said, looking in one the cabinets for Aspirin. "Do you know if Sarah unpacked the medication yet?" "She most likely put it in the bathroom." I walked back upstairs and into the tiny bathroom. I popped open the bottle of Aspirin and took a few in a desperate attempt to relieve myself of my migraine. I then stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and thought I saw something standing behind me. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, not seeing anything. I thoroughly inspected the entire room, but in a place as small as this was, there weren't too many places for someone to hide and gave up after ten seconds. I walked back downstairs and discussed the incident with Libby, who suggested it was nothing and that my headache was causing my mind to play tricks on me. Not long after, a disheveled Sarah came downstairs and walked into the kitchen. "Morning Sarah!" said Libby. "Want some pancakes?" Libby gestured towards the stove, where a steaming plate of untouched chocolate pancakes sat. Sarah groaned. "Guys, I had a bad dream last night. A really bad one." "About what?" I asked. "It was a random montage of scary and fucked up stuff. Visions of a dark forest engulfed in fog, a demonic ritual with people clothed in black robes, us trapped in some abandoned building, people dying....it was scary as all out gets." I was stunned. That dream seemed like something straight out of horror movie. I looked across the table at Libby, who also had no words. Chapter 3 Later that day, after cleaning up the kitchen following the breakfast nobody ate, we decided to get out of the house and bought tickets to the South Carolina Aquarium. We spent a couple hours touring the place, then went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We eventually returned home by nightfall. Outside, it was beyond 80 degrees with plenty of humidity. As soon as I crossed the threshold into the house, the temperature plunged by what seemed like nearly 50 degrees. "Jesus Christ who left the air conditioner on?" Sarah exclaimed. "This house doesn't even have it," said Libby. While those two went back and forth, something in the kitchen caught my attention and I slowly made my way down the hall. No lights in the house were turned on, but the moonlight streaming in through the window illuminated the room. I faced the area containing the sink and saw nothing, when a cold breath on my neck made me freeze. I did not make a sound, nor move, for what seemed like forever. Slowly, I mustered enough courage to gradually turn my head to face behind me, but again saw no one. I then turned around completely and noticed the sliding door in the adjacent eating area standing wide open. "Guys, someone might have broken in," I called out, and Sarah and Libby came running. "What? How do you know?" Sarah asked, pestering me with questions without providing time to respond. I pointed at the open door. Both girls were dumbfounded. "I'm calling the police," I announced, and dug around in my pocket for my cell phone. "You two turn on the lights and search the house for anyone. Make sure they aren't hiding out somewhere." They then left the room while I placed a call to the local police department. Within ten minutes they arrived. Just as I let them in, a bloodcurdling scream from upstairs made my blood run cold. Chapter 4 I ran upstairs, with the three cops who showed up right behind me. I found Sarah and Libby in my bedroom, both back up against the far wall opposite my closet. Both were hysterical, and I couldn't get a clear answer from either of them. "For God's sake, just spit it out!" I yelled, and Sarah pointed directly at the closed closet door. One of the cops volunteered to check inside, and everyone stood on guard. The officer, with his gun at his side, gradually stepped over to the door and practically yanked it open, and when he did, my jaw dropped to the floor. There was a real human skeleton stowed in there! The officer who made the discovery immediately radioed to his precinct for back-up. We tried to get a closer look at the bones, which looked dirty and of great age. The cops then performed a meticulous investigation of the whole house, which revealed no one had broken in and no other skeletons were hidden away somewhere. Sometime during the investigation, the county coroner showed up and took the bones away, assuring us he would report back to us once he finished his examination. All while this was happening, people were coming out of their houses and stood out on their lawns, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. By that point, I had enough and decided to go to bed. The next morning, I switched on the TV and saw a live news story reporting about the bones found in our house the night prior. "Oh for crying out loud," I said to myself as I buried my face in the couch cushions. "Something should be wrong?" Libby asked as she walked by. "Look at the TV," I said, not getting up. "Oh my," Was the response I heard from her. "This is just what I wanted. A derelict old house that is now the center of a possible murder that the media will have a field day over," I said, getting up and storming out the front door. I decided I needed to calm down, so I started walking up the street and attempted to clear my head. I had barely made it down the driveway when I was stopped by two teenage boys walking down the street. "I was wondering when they would find the remains," One of them said, looking at me. Uh, what? I thought. What the hell are these two talking about? "Excuse me?" I said to them. "Yeah, I know, you must be confused," The other one said. "Last night, that skeleton that was taken out of your house, it was the remains of Roger van Dike III," Explained the first one. Who now? I thought. I just stared at these two guys, hoping they would go away so I could continue with my walk. After all, did I really need to know who died in my house? I just wanted to forget about it. "Who was that?" I found myself asking them. "He was a Union soldier who worked at Fort Sumter," The first teen explained. "You know what that is?" I nodded my head, having learned about it in APUSH back in high school. "Okay," Began the second one. "Well, when the First Battle of Fort Sumter began on April 12, 1861, van Dike was standing guard on the roof of the facility when the first mortar shell exploded over the fort around 4 in the morning. The blast killed van Dike on impact." What a dumb way to die, I thought to myself, but I said nothing. "Once the bombardment of the fort concluded, van Dike's body was taken by his comrades and sent back to the mainland, where he was buried at Magnolia Cemetery," The first one said. "However," Began the second teen. "South Carolina was a Confederate state and the thought of a Union soldier being buried in that cemetery drove Charleston residents insane. So, one night, a group of secessionists went to the cemetery and dug his body up and walked over to your house. Having been newly built at the time, they broke in and hid it. The next day, the gravekeeper made his rounds at Magnolia and noticed that the unmarked grave where the solider was buried was disturbed, and the body was missing. However, no one knew where it was." "Later, when the first family moved into that house, they described terrifying visions of paranormal activity. They soon moved out," Continued the second teen. "Everyone thought they were crazy, until it happened to the next family. And the next family. And the next one. In the early 1920s, rumors began to surface that the long-missing body was hidden somewhere in that house. By that time, it was abandoned and no one ever had the audacity to go in and try and find it. In 1930, a group of thrill seekers snuck into the house and tried to find the body. Long story short, three of them ended up dead and the other four escaped, describing being attacked by 'devilish monsters' that killed three of their friends." The first one then continued with this; "Coroner reports show that there were gashes and marks on some of the mystery hunters no human was capable of inflicting without a weapon, and a thorough search of the house revealed there was absolutely nothing that could have made those marks. Plans were eventually made to tear the place down, but in the 1970s someone attempted to convert it into an inn. The work was almost complete when one June night, local residents said the owner of the place ran screaming from it in the middle of night, never to return. The place then went from owner and owner, adding additional modern anemities but never actually living there. It has since stood empty for almost a year when you bought it and moved in." I stood in stunned silence, trying to process everything that was just explained to me. I began to feel like my life was becoming a Hollywood movie. Moving into a creepy old house. Not knowing what went on there. Rumors of ghosts. Being stopped on the street by random strangers and having everything explained to me. At that, I thanked the two random guys for the story and went back inside. Chapter 5 As soon as I entered the house, I searched for Sarah and Libby. Libby was in the laundry room, while Sarah was in her room watching anime. I got them both and took them into the living room and explained everything. By the time I was finished, both of my friends had stunned looks on their faces. "Anthony.....how the hell do you know about all this?" Sarah asked. "I know it sounds uncanny, but just as I was going for a walk, two random people stopped me and told me everything I just relayed to you," I said. "Well, you don't believe it, do you?" Libby asked. "Libby, between last night and today, I don't know what I'm supposed to believe anymore. All I know is there was a real human skeleton found in my closet, and this house certainly seems to have a legend about it." "You shouldn't listen to random people just wandering about," Sarah said. "They're probably messing with you." "Well, tomorrow I'm going to the historical society to confirm that story. It has some truth," I said, walking out. Category:Hypothetical Stories